Quetzal On Urth?

Charles Reed · 26 Nov 2002, 14:38 · from urth-v0211.mbox · original

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From: "Charles Reed" <cmreed at link.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Quetzal On Urth?
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 08:38:05 -0600
Message-ID: <urth-v0211-2251 at digest.urth.net>
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Don Doggett wrote:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Charles Reed" <cmreed at link.com>
> > I feel like I'm ranting, and I apologize.  I just can't see any textual
>
>>support (which again is not the same as the lack of refutation) for the
>>idea that any inhumi ever visited Urth.  Is there any?
>>
>>Charles
>>
>>
>
>No need at all to apologize.  These texts can be maddening if you're looki=
ng
>for conclusive evidence for anything. =20
>

I have to disagree.  I think they're only maddening when you're looking=20
for conclusive evidence to support incorrect theories.  :-)

>I think there is incidental support
>for the inhumi on Urth, but I also think that Wolfe shoehorned it in after
>the fact.  Near the end of Claw, Jolenta is bitten by something (a blood
>bat?) and the bleeding won't stop. =20
>

But inhumu "bites" don't cause bleeding in their victims.  People that=20
are "bitten" feel the way that they do simply because they've lost blood=20
-- by having it sucked out of them, not by bleeding externally.  In=20
fact, a lot of the victims don't even know that they've been attacked=20
(see Inclito's mother as just one of many examples).  This certainly=20
wouldn't be the case if the attack resulted in bleeding of any kind,=20
much less uncontrollable bleeding.

>Immediately after, they meet the Cumaen
>and Merryn in the ruined town of Apu Punchau.  This doesn't have any
>relevance by itself, but in Return to the Whorl, Silkhorn and Jahlee (and
>whoever else) encounter Merryn on Urth and Jahlee seems to intimate that
>Merryn is an inhuma (at least that's one way to interpret it).
>

Can you quote the passage in RttW that "Jahlee seems to intimate that Merryn
is an inhuma" ?

Again, I hate to use "extra-textual" sources to support my idea (or to atta=
ck your idea), but I'm afraid I'm going to.  In the same Nick Gevers interv=
iew in which Wolfe explained his ideas about the g

Q:  Are the Cumaen and/or Merryn inhumi?  Possibly, or definitely?
A:  No.  The Cumaean is an alien but not an inhuma.  Merryn is a human=20
being.

Take that for what it's worth.  I've not known Gene Wolfe to lie about=20
anything in an interview.  He doesn't always answer the question that is=20
asked, but when he does, I  believe what he says.

Charles

--=20

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